Fabrication of large composite parts, such as components of aircraft, often may involve kitting, layup, assembly, and/or curing of elongate composite parts that may be many tens, or even over a hundred feet long. Fabrication of such elongate composite parts presents unique manufacturing challenges.
Traditional manufacturing methods for fabricating composite parts include manually locating a plurality of plies of composite material on a layup mandrel to form a composite layup, with each ply of the plurality of plies generally being coextensive with a remainder of the plurality of plies in the composite part. The composite layup subsequently is cured, on the layup mandrel, to form the composite part. While such traditional manufacturing methods may be effective at forming smaller composite parts, they may be inefficient when applied to forming larger composite parts. As an example, a manufacturing floor space needed to fabricate large composite parts utilizing traditional manufacturing methods may be substantial. As another example, an amount of time required to fabricate large composite parts utilizing traditional manufacturing methods may be quite large. As yet another example, there may be ergonomic concerns when large composite parts are fabricated manually.
Any of these manufacturing constraints may increase the cost of, or present safety challenges during, fabrication of the large composite part. Thus, there exists a need for improved composite part fabrication systems and methods.